Day 231, Year 9: We Win . . . the Waiting Game
Date: Monday, June 9, 2014
Weather: Mostly Cloudy, Cooling Down a Bit
Location: Back Home on Windbird, Quissett Harbor, Falmouth, MA
Unless something happens to change the plans, Mark will be released from the hospital tomorrow morning. This is the soonest that we anticipated that he could possibly be released, thus I say ‘we win’ the waiting game. Actually Mark wins. He is doing great. This morning before I got to the hospital, they removed the epidural. Later in the morning they removed the catheter. Suddenly he was free from tubes leading to regulators on that heavy pole he has been pushing around since Friday. So he was able to walk freely through the hospital and outside whereupon . . . Mark immediately felt like he might need to go to the bathroom. This was a good sign, but not good to be outside. So we walked up the steps to the walk in front of the Bullfinch Building and back into the hospital whereupon . . . the urge left him. So we decided to venture into the Bullfinch Building to the historic operating arena under the Ether Dome that I mentioned in yesterday’s log. The Bullfinch Building (designed by architect Charles Bullfinch), as well as the Ether Dome, are both National Historical Landmarks and we really enjoyed our little self-led tour. Inside the operating arena there is mummy that was donated to Mass General, a skeleton that was used for teaching anatomy in the early 1800’s, display cases with surgical instruments from those early days, and photographs of the hospital and the operating arena as it was then. In areas around the arena there were examination tables from the 1800’s—some were leather and others velvet! I’m going to have to talk to my doctor about this. I want a velvet examination table! Mark and I both love Boston and I think it is because at every turn there are fascinating historical landmarks. I didn’t even mention that yesterday at lunch time I took a walk down Charles Street and then up Beacon Hill to walk part of the Black Heritage Trail. Just walking past The Charles Street Meeting House that served as a pulpit for abolitionists like Frederick Douglass and Soujourner Truth gave me goosebumps.
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| 140608 Day 230 Cape Cod, USA–Black Heritage Trail on Beacon Hill |
But back to the present. Once Mark and I returned from our little historical foray today, Mark had soft food waiting for him. Tuna salad on white bread and angel food cake didn’t look very inviting to me, but it was the first food Mark has had since last Wednesday, so ate just a little as he was instructed and it tasted great to him. Then mid-afternoon, Dr. Ferrone and her entourage of residents came to visit Mark and announce that he can go home tomorrow morning. Yikes! We had to switch gears from waiting to getting ready to go. I left almost immediately to avoid rush hour traffic to come home to do a bit of cooking for Mark and to get some food items that he will need this week. Tomorrow morning I will head back to Boston to pick Mark up and then take him to New Hampshire to spend the rest of the week at the home of friends Detta and Tom Porat. I will return here to do my Granny Nanny thing for the rest of the week and then drive back to New Hampshire for the weekend. All of that waiting has suddenly turned into a whirlwind of activity. But that’s okay because Mark will be out the hospital where it is almost impossible to rest and be transported to ‘Porat’s on the Bay.’ Tom and Detta live on the Great Bay in Greenland, New Hampshire, just a few miles from Portsmouth. Mark can walk out of his guest bedroom there and sit on the edge of the Bay and read. Short of being on a boat (where he should not be quite yet), I can’t think of a more perfect place for Mark to recover from surgery. Thank you, Tom and Detta.
